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WASHINGTON -- In the past few weeks alone, three Caribbean leaders hobnobbed with President Bush at the White House, first lady Laura Bush made her first trip to Haiti and two top Bush administration officials went island-hopping to push a joint security arrangement.
Not so long ago, relations between the United States and the Caribbean were chilly at best, as Caribbean nations warmed up to China and oil-rich Venezuela and publicly squabbled with Washington over the war in Iraq, the 2004 ouster of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, deportees, and the lack of substantial U.S. aid to the region.
With a new crop of Caribbean leaders taking over in several island nations -- and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez facing internal and international difficulties -- the Bush administration is making a strong push to woo a region that has seen little attention from top policymakers.
The outreach is mutual, as Caribbean nations need Congress to renew a vital trade-preference pact by the end of September. Many are wondering, however, if the efforts have more to do with a last-ditch effort by the Bush administration to solidify its legacy in the region rather than with ratifying substantive agreements.
''The Caribbean presence on the U.S. radar screen is much more pronounced,'' said Suriname native Albert Ramdin, assistant secretary general of the Organization of American States. ``The general feeling in the Caribbean is that there is more talk on [the U.S.] side than delivery.''
A STRING OF U.S. VISITS
Last week, Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Thomas Shannon and the head of U.S. Southern Command Adm. James Stavridis visited Barbados, Suriname and Guyana to discuss crime and drug-trafficking issues, a top regional concern.
A few days before, prime ministers Hubert Ingraham of the Bahamas, David Thompson of Barbados and Dean Barrow of Belize were in the Oval Office, where Bush told the newly elected leaders that ``the neighborhood is important to the United States of America.''
And earlier last month, Laura Bush delivered the president's regards to Haitian President René Préval as she promoted AIDS funding to that nation.
Colin Granderson, assistant secretary general for the 15-member Caribbean Community regional bloc known as CARICOM, says the visits are being viewed as part of an ongoing improvement in relations between the United States and CARICOM that first began with a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the Bahamas in 2006.
Daniel Erikson, a Caribbean expert with the Inter-American Dialogue, said the overtures indicate that 'the U.S., for its part, has largely dropped its `us-or-them' mentality toward Caribbean relations with Chávez, which means that these countries will have an easier time managing these multiple relationships without political costs.''
In 2005, Chávez went on the offensive in the region through PetroCaribe, which offers concessionary finance terms for oil purchases. Soon afterward, the Caribbean seemed to align itself more with Chávez, backing Venezuela's 2006 bid to join the U.N. Security Council and voting for pro-Chávez candidates at the OAS.
Jorge Piñón, an energy fellow with the University of Miami's Center for Hemispheric Policy, estimates that the Caribbean region now owes Chávez more than $1 billion.
Also, Venezuela has promised more than it has delivered, signing up deals that would cover nearly half of the Caribbean's oil needs but in 2007 delivering only one-fifth of those contracted totals, Piñón said.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration has stepped up its Caribbean outreach, last year dispatching the U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort to Caribbean and Latin American ports and providing more than $200 million in aid to Haiti for police training, HIV/AIDS and other programs. It also has teamed up with Brazil to explore biofuel alternatives for poor Caribbean countries.
NATIONS SKEPTICAL
Even as the efforts have been well-received, leaders are wondering what it means for the long term.
''It's very difficult, from where we stand, to tell what is a legacy issue and what is a genuine desire to engage the region,'' Guyana President Bharrat Jagdeo told The Miami Herald in a telephone interview.
''But we are grateful for the opportunity to interact with them because I think the more people who come to the region from the administration, they will have a better understanding of the challenges we face,'' he added.
Jamaica Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who was invited but could not make the White House meeting, said in a Miami Herald interview during a recent South Florida visit that he isn't quite sure what to make of the recent overtures.
But recognizing that the United State over the years has had to shift its diplomatic focus elsewhere in the world, Golding said it's time for it to pay closer attention to home.
''It's time once again for America to look at its diplomacy priorities in Latin America because of its contiguous relationship with the United States, because of the size of its population, and because of the impact it can have on the global economy and the impact the global economy is having on it,'' he said.
''It needs to be looked at from a development point of view, and that development would involve not just expanding trading opportunities but a special investment push,'' he said.Topping the agenda for now is crime and security.
The Caribbean is now providing the United States with advance passenger lists of tourists visiting the region, and Shannon said he would look into the possibility of setting up a Drug Enforcement Administration office in Guyana.
The State Department is studying the outcome of last weekend's CARICOM security summit in Trinidad before determining how to proceed, U.S. officials say.
Shannon also said the Bush administration will look into ways to help the countries better prepare to receive deportees -- a major point of friction.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon is considering reactivating the 4th Fleet to augment the Navy's presence in Latin America and the Caribbean, with an eye on drug interdiction, medical missions, disaster response and counterterrorism, according to Stavridis.
While Caribbean and U.S. diplomats prefer to see all this as positives, others are more skeptical.
''These are legacy overtures on the part of the Bush White House. I don't see it as anything special or differential,'' said Ivelaw Griffith, a longtime Caribbean expert and provost at York College, The City University of New York.
``Out of the visits come what? Out of the conversations come what?''
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